Bloody computers

And, whilst I'm at it - bloody computers!
Jan decided to give her old XP laptop to her sister who uses a library computer but doesn't have one of her own. This one spends most of its time in a cupboard gathering dust so I spent a lot of yesterday getting the machine in good order by deleting all superfluous software (and access to special interest sites - Ed) and also by ensuring that all remaining applications were current and up-to-date.
All went well until late in the afternoon when for some unknown reason the bloody thing decided not to connect to our router. 
WTF. It had been happy all day and it suddenly decided to misbehave and I couldn't work out why. I know my way around these machines quite well now but could I figure it out, so, tired and fed up, I decided to sleep on it.
In my experience the answer is always obvious the next morning. Well, little did I realise how much time I'd have to think about it because Jan was snoring like a gud un and Minnie needed to be let out at 4.45 in the morning.
Thanks guys, however it did allow me ample time to formulate a plan of action.
Grumpy from a lack of sleep and ready to chuck the machine out of the window at the first sign of indolence I booted up and it connected first time. It had obviously had a better night's sleep than I'd had.
Bugger.